AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter Thirteen
Jo
Quinn’s handstighten on mine and I look up into his eyes, trying—unsuccessfully—to imagine life without him. I’ve failed, I know I’ve failed, but I no longer care as much about being a part of the Alliance as I do about being a part of his life. But why would he want to be with someone who has such a fatal blindness that she couldn’t see the snake in her own operation? A snake who’d been lying in the grass for years on years, obsessing over me without me realizing it?
“You’re frowning,” Quinn murmurs, refocusing me. “Is it your head? Does it still hurt?”
“No—I mean, yes, but not bad,” I sigh, trying to ease my expression. “I just…I feel so stupid.”
“You can’t dwell on the past, Jo, only the future—and before you counter that, you do have a future. In the Alliance. At the table.”
My eyes snap wide, but Quinn only tightens his hands on mine. “I can’t manage my business on instincts alone, Jo Prescott. I need your sharp mind and all the fancy tools you’ve put into place here. Geno may have taken advantage of your trusting nature, but that doesn’t discount the fact that you have created a system the Alliance needs to keep a leg up on our competitors.”
“You want to hire me?” I ask, my heart surging. I don’t care how Quinn wants me in his life, if there’s anything that will allow us to remain together I’ll hold onto it with both hands.
He smiles his heartbreaking smile. “No, Jo. I don’t want to hire you—I want to marry you. I want you to leave this house and come to my mansion, and fill it with your laughter and your big heart and all the beeping, whirring equipment you want. I want you to hire all the people you want—good people, vetted people—and create the team you were never able to assemble because you were plowing all your money into tech. I want you to stop doing everything yourself, and simply enjoy being for awhile. That’s what I want…why are you staring at me like that?”
I swallow, trying to form words, when all I can do is fixate on the very first part of his speech. “You want to marry me?” I whisper.
Quinn grins and pulls me close, angling his head down to brush his lips softly over mine. “As much as I want to show you exactly how much I want to marry you, Jo Prescott, you’ve got a nasty bump on your head and you need to be treated gently ‘til we make sure you’re okay. But after that—I’ll propose to you the way a proper Zorro would capture the heart of his Lolita, with roses and a ring…and a very long sword.”
I snort with laughter that verges on the edge of hysteria. “I would like to see that.”
“I’ll do it a thousand times if it will bring a smile to your face, beautiful Jo,” Quinn murmurs, and he folds me into his arms. “You’re everything I didn’t know I needed—and now I can’t imagine a life without you.”
“I can’t either,” I admit, resting my head against his chest. I don’t know if I’m so dizzy because of getting cracked on the head, or because of the lightness that Quinn’s words have created within me. All I know is that it feels like my feet aren’t resting on the ground anymore, my head’s filled with clouds, and my heart…
“Say you’ll marry me, Jo,” Quinn asks again, and I lean back to meet his gorgeous green eyes.
“I will,” I say, and then I finally understand what I’m feeling. My heart is happy, I decide. Truly and impossibly happy. “I will.”
